In today's latest article by Joe Beam, Joe answers criticism of his previous articles and clarifies his position on love, attractiveness and passion.
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What Makes People Fall In Love? (Part 2), by Joe Beam.
In previous articles I began sharing a model that explains how people fall in love, fall out of love, and how they can fall in love with each other again. I received the following email objecting quite strongly to my statements about how physical appearance affects love.
If people are concerned about the looks of their mates, then maybe the problem lies in their heart. What about the person who> struggles with their weight and appearance everyday? Maybe the constant disapproval of their mate is the cause of such problems. Where is the love in that? God tells us to love each other no matter what. If someone is looking at their spouses' appearance then I must question their relationship with God. Love only comes through our relationship with Jesus. Love endures all things, hopes all things, does not demand its own way, etc., (1 Cor. 13) True love in a marriage comes from two people who have an individual relationship with God. That's what brings these two people together.
Outward appearances are the initial attraction, but never God's plan. He wanted us to seek Him first. Our initial attraction should have been/should be to God. If we as Christians are looking into the face of our Maker to fulfill the voids where love should be, then what our mate looks like will never come into the picture.
All this advice you speak comes from the study of man's ways which are selfish by nature. Study the word of God as much as you study man and you will not be ashamed!
I believe I understand the writer's point, but I'm not sure that she understood mine.
She is correct in writing that a person who struggles with weight or some other aspect of appearance could have that problem exacerbated by a continually critical spouse. The reaction of the beleaguered spouse may be to gain more weight or develop even greater problems. It's likely that the verbally abused spouse will build an emotional wall to keep the abusing spouse's words from hurting so much. (Read Willard Harley's book, Love Busters.) In a case like that, each partner will likely lose love for the other.
Yes. Lose love.
Perhaps the writer missed our first article that explains that love has three components. Dr. Robert Sternberg of Yale shows in his research that love consists of decision/commitment, intimacy, and passion. Each of these is a kind of love in itself, and varying combinations of the three demonstrate seven distinct kinds of love. We shouldn't be surprised at that: the men God used to write the bible clearly understood that love has different dimensions. For example, Matthew wrote of a type of love that is a primarily decision that doesn't involve warm feelings (Matthew 5:44). On the other hand, Jesus felt a kind of love for Lazarus that carried strong feelings of closeness and bonded ness (John 11:36).
When I write of love being negatively affected when a person no longer cares about how he or she looks, I write primarily about passion (eros) and it's loss. Notice the following questions I received from Christians during Love, Sex & Marriage seminars.
What is the best way to let your spouse know that the way she does things or looks is a real turn off to you?
My husband has allowed himself to become unattractive. I've prayed that God will give me passionate feelings for him anyway. Years pass and I still feel no desire for him. When I watch movies, I cry.
Does belching, passing gas, and otherwise lack of self-control fall in the category of "being as attractive as possible for your mate?"
I've received many, many questions from people negatively affected by their spouse's lack of concern about appearance or actions. EVERY ONE of those questions came from Christian audiences. Notice that two of the three I list here have to do with MEN letting themselves go physically, or exercising no control over bodily functions that dismay their wives. Do you think having unconditional love would mean that their wives shouldn't mention displeasure at their husbands acting without discipline? If the wife can point out that passing gas is a physical turn off to her, can she not also point out that his allowing himself to become flabby because he overeats and doesn't exercise is a turn off as well?
Sure she can.
Is she sinning when she does that?
Absolutely not.
God wrote in Ephesians 4:25, "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body."
Does that passage exclude husbands and wives? Obviously not. Could a husband or wife be godly while telling the other that certain actions (like passing gas) or that inattention to one's body (like being unattractively overweight without a medical reason for the condition) is affecting the passion in their relationship? Absolutely. While I agree that the truth should be shared in a loving way, rather than in anger or frustration (Ephesians 4:15, 29), our experience with thousands of couples shows that to find true spirituality in their relationship, they must learn to be open with each other about everything.
I completely agree that cruel demands or constant nagging destroy a relationship. But hiding feelings and lying to each other destroys it just as thoroughly.
Am I saying that everyone has to be beautiful? Let me answer that by quoting from my book, Becoming One:
Not every person is gorgeous, brilliant, athletic, or magnetic. We each have unique characteristics given to us by God, and those varying characteristics make up a population that gives the earth all its needs. Accepting ourselves as we are also means accepting all our physical, mental, and other imperfections. (page 93)
When Jesus came to be one of us, He made it clear that physical beauty wasn't related to worth. Isaiah predicted of Jesus, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." Jesus came as an ordinary, regular guy, without handsomeness or personal magnetism. If He walked past you on the street, you wouldn't look twice. (page 94)
We aren't all beautiful, nor do we have to be. But unless some medical problem intercedes, each of us can be attractive to our spouses. My point was, and still is, that one of the things that attracted us to our mate was his or her physical appearance. While the writer claims that such an attraction isn't of God, a casual examination of nature proves that it IS of God. Physical attraction is built into nearly every species so that mating and procreation take place. He placed it in humans as well. To try to connect our awareness of physical attractiveness to the fallen nature of man and say that it is entirely unspiritual is to miss God's point entirely. He made humankind that way BEFORE the fall.
Therefore, I stand by my previous statements. If you want love to continually grow in your marriage, you must never assume that your appearance no longer matters. Is it the primary thing on which to base intimacy? Absolutely not. But will it continue to be important to the passion in your marriage until the day you die? Absolutely so.
My wife and I are both 51 years old. Neither of us looks like we did when we were 21 years old and neither of us expects that. But Alice expects me to take care of my body and control my laziness so that I will continue to be attractive to her. I expect the same from her.
And your spouse, if he or she is being honest, very likely expects the same from you.
May I mention just one more thing? The writer penned, "If we as Christians are looking into the face of our Maker to fulfill the voids where love should be, then what our mate looks like will never come into the picture." Notice carefully her phrase "to fulfill the voids where love should be." I think that phrase speaks volumes about the writer's own frustrations. My very purpose in this series of articles is to show couples how to have a relationship in which there are no voids. Being unhappy with one's mate -- in either appearance or actions -- creates a void that doesn't have to be there, and that all too often can be remedied but isn't.
I love God with all my heart, but if my marriage is as it should be, I won't have to seek from Him the fulfillment He meant for me to find with a loving spouse. Rather than giving up on having a great marriage and hoping God can fulfill those needs within us, let's first do marriage as He designed it so we can experience the joy He built into it. Even atheists can have fulfilling, wonderful marriages when they do it right; the latest Barna study shows they have less divorce than> Christians! Let's quit blaming God for our faults and start taking advantage of His designs.
Next article we resume our study of love.
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(C) 2000, Joe Beam <. Used by permission.